


The Opposite of Hate

by gloss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Canon Divergence, Cyborgs, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Rescue, Sharing a Bed, Suicidal Ideation, Survivor Guilt, physical injuries, psychological whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-22 17:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9617654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: Finn is a janitor again.After Poe Dameron died in that crash on Jakku, nothing else went right.When BB-8 thinks he has found footage of Poe, alive but imprisoned, Finn is the only one able to help.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jiokra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiokra/gifts).



> Thanks to @orchis for handholding and beta reading. Certain dynamics and lines - "they think well together" - are directly indebted to @galacticproportions, while I'm pretty sure I'd never have imagined space-skyping without the work of @sixappleseeds .
> 
>  
> 
> Title from an old [June Panic song](https://www.discogs.com/June-Panic-Songs-From-Purgatory/release/3275827).

Finn is a janitor again.

"It's not too late," Phasma told him as he and Chewie wrestled her toward the garbage chute on Starkiller. She was trying to bargain, waving any number of stupid fake promises, seeing what he'd respond to. He'd get promoted, he could work directly under her, he'd never have to undergo reconditioning again.

She didn't have the authority to offer any of those things.

"It's not too late," she said, again and again. Her tone switched from wheedling to arrogant and back. "Everything can go back to the way it was."

That's when Chewie punched a bigger hole in the wall to shove her through. 

Phasma was wrong, always had been, always would be. But she happened to have been right about this one thing. He's back at the same job.

Mopping floors, fixing sewer droids, emptying sanitation bricks from the compressor: the work is the same whether he's on Starkiller or here in yet another CalrissianCorp facility.

Of course, here he gets paid, a decent amount of credits. Two-thirds of them go directly to pay rent on his dwelling capsule. But that means he does have his own place to live, a long tube blown into the architectural ruins north of the new city. He has a bed, a toilet, a fusion cooker and sometimes fresh produce. A third-hand comms receptor, an even older datapad loaded with the classic literature of the Republic and Empire.

It's not the stuff that matters most, but it _does_ matter. A safe place to sleep, food that might not taste great but is his own, and texts to read are all the kinds of things he never knew to dream about in the first place.

He has his freedom, whatever that means.

*

Finn keeps himself company with memories. He thinks about the people he's known since leaving Starkiller and makes them his companions. He conjures up the memories of Rey's smile and the damp, crushing grip of her hand in his; of Solo's hoarse voice and the silver fall of his hair. The warmth of Chewie's pelt.

Poe Dameron's sweaty, beautiful face, streaked with blood, swelling with bruises, as his dark eyes lit up.

None of these memories are nearly enough, of course. They're scraps, enough to take the edge off but not enough to live on; shards, almost enough to see the beauty that was the thing before breaking. All the same, these memories are more than he can handle, sometimes.

Sometimes - a lot of the time, and more often than he would like to admit - he misses his trooper squad. He misses the helmet and armor, how when he was suited up, he belonged to something bigger and more powerful. He misses the incapacity to think. Thinking was unnecessary.

That's not an option any longer. Now he's free, and alone. The thoughts and memories won't stop flooding through him.

He does see Rey occasionally, usually on the comms, but twice now in person. She's almost a full-blown Jedi these days, grave and even more beautiful than ever. He can still startle her into laughing, however, which is something that he treasures. But she's too busy to call, let alone visit, very often at all. The scraps of what's left of the Resistance need all the help she and Skywalker can provide.

"But I miss you," she says now, leaning into the holo-eye. "How _are_ you?"

Finn rolls his shoulders, one, then the other, takes a breath. "I'm fine. All right --" When she starts to frown, he amends that as quickly as he can. "I'm more than all right. Miss you, too."

Rey smiles and looks away, a dimple flickering in her cheek. Something out of visual range crashes, or explodes, and she jumps, scrambling out of sight.

"You okay?" Finn asks, like an asshole. What can he do, sitting here in his fucking tube, watching? "Rey?"

She comes back into focus. "Fine, sorry about that. Nothing serious."

He doesn't even know where she's comm-ing him from. He's not allowed to know. Technically, he does have clearance with the Resistance, it's just the lowest-possible level. He's allowed to talk to Rey, basically, that's what the clearance amounts to. Without it, he'd have to pretend she didn't exist.

"Sounded like ordnance," he says, because it _did_ , he's not going to pretend he doesn't know some things.

Rey makes a face and shrugs. She hates lying. Now he feels even worse for pushing her like this.

"Or somebody fell over," Finn adds, trying to smile. "What do I know?"

"I really do miss you," she says again. Maybe she's trying to convince herself. "BB-8 says hi."

"Bantha-shit he does," Finn replies and grins a little. If the droid has mentioned him at all, it was no doubt something like "tell that thief to go to hell". 

Finn's Binary is improving day by day, thanks to SNI-42. She's one of the scrubber mechs at work; they've been trading her Binary lessons for his stories. Even so, he's not yet advanced to translate that from Basic.

"I have to go," Rey says quietly. "I'll try to be in touch."

"Be safe, Rey. Please." He kisses his fingertip and holds it up to the receiver; after a moment, blinking fast, she echoes the gesture.

With his other hand, Finn toggles off the comms before he lies back down. If he wanted to pay another 25 credits/week, he could have artificial light (from his choice of a variety of single and binary stars) and nature scenes from across the galaxy projected across the ceiling of his capsule. He could look up and pretend he's somewhere else.

Instead, he has what's really there: the gentle arch in smooth, matte plastimaterial. When he can't sleep, which is often, he half-imagines, half-dreads that it's lowering over him, closing around him, squeezing him to death like refuse in the compressor.

At the end, he'll be a pellet, tiny and dense. It'll probably be a good thing.

What good is he for these days? Not much, if anything.

He helped get Rey off Starkiller. That is the extent of Finn's usefulness to date in his entire life. Maybe without him, BB-8 wouldn't have gotten back to the Resistance, but he doubts that. As annoying as BB-8 is, as fraught as their relationship, if one can even call it that, is, Finn readily acknowledges that BB-8 is every bit as resourceful as Rey.

If anything, they probably would have been better off without Finn.

In his desperation to escape, to run from his fear, Finn got Poe Dameron killed. Maybe he should be grateful Rey and BB-8, Han and Chewie, have so far survived his acquaintance. Of course, Han lost an eye and an arm on Starkiller, trying to get away from Kylo Ren. "Survival" is a fairly relative term.

*

SNI-42 is comprised of a coiled hose apparatus, a small power source, and one of the kindest minds Finn has met. She's a champ at sucking clean not just the drains and pipes throughout the facility, but snaking through other ductwork, to root out other problems in heating, life support, and ventilation. When she first volunteered for the task, Finn soldered a small holo-unit to her beak to act as eyes for them both.

Today after shift, she's running him through Binary's two most common contour tones. His head is ringing already, and it hasn't been an hour yet.

"Patient," she tells him. 

"Invalid or calm?" he asks and smiles a little.

She likes puns. When she processes that one, she propels a few puffs of air out her beak. "Funny boy. Imperative verb, not simple noun."

"You (understood), be patient," he says, understanding, nodding. "I'm trying."

"Good." 

She gives him six more beeps to distinguish and identify. He gets five correct, only to flub a simple participle.

"Tired?" she asks.

"I am," he replies. He rubs his temples, then his eyes, and shrugs. "Sorry. That spill on floor seven took a lot out of me."

"Yes."

Finn draws his knees up and loops his arms around them. He can still smell the decontamination chemicals coming off his skin and the fabric of his uniform. Digging his chin against one kneecap, he asks, "Why are you helping me?"

Sani is quiet for a long while. Neither of them speaks when they don't have something to say.

"Because you need it," she says eventually.

He flexes the fingers on both hands. Droids' most foundational programming must have to do with serving sentients. What if she doesn't have a choice? What if she had to help him once he asked.

"You don't have to," he says. "If you don't want to."

"I am aware of that fact." Sani uncoils her hose, turns the other way, and curls back up. "Read the poetry."

Several shifts back, she found an obsolete memory chip loaded with what seems to have been a text for a literature class. Love Across the Stars: A Galactic Compendium of Poetry is SNI's new favorite artifact. She's more than capable of processing the chip herself, but prefers to have Finn read aloud and explain emotions, connotations, and inferences.

He's barely better equipped than she to make sense of most of them, but he does try.

*

On Takodana, blinded by the fear over what Starkiller had done to the Hosnian system and what Kylo Ren was going to do with Rey, Finn let Solo talk him into approaching the Resistance for help.

They met in her troop carrier; she was a tiny woman, intense, her face drawn and gray with anxiety.

He told her everything, how Poe Dameron had been captured on Jakku, how he had helped Dameron escape, their crash.

"A TIE fighter!" Solo said, slapping the bulkhead. "That's Dameron all over! Can't be anyone else!"

"It was my idea," Finn said, "but, yes, he flew it beautifully. It was my error that we --"

"I wish I could believe you," the general said, then added, when Solo cleared his throat and started to protest, "I _do_ believe you. But I can't risk what few resources we have left on that belief. I'm sorry."

"He's telling the truth," Solo said.

Finn closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and tried to smile at the general. The more time they wasted here, the less chance Rey had, he knew that. "Thanks anyway."

"Kid --" Solo called after him, reaching for Finn's arm while saying to the general, "Leia, this isn't right, you've got to --"

"I've got to what, precisely?" she asked. 

Finn had stopped in the entrance and turned now. "I need to go help Rey," he told Solo, then addressed the general. "Thank you, ma'am. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

"I'm vouching for him!" Solo said desperately.

She closed her eyes and drew a breath. "I wish that were enough. You have to know I do."

They went by themselves to Starkiller in the _Falcon_. Rey was waiting for them, but so was Kylo Ren.

*

Finn keeps himself calm. Staying calm is the most important thing these days; once he was fed and sheltered, it became the sole priority. 

If calm resembles servitude, that's hardly his fault. When he was a trooper, everything was decided for him, laid out, made absolutely clear. Now he has to do that for himself. He keeps to the same routine every day. If he isn't scheduled to work, he spends work hours reading and training. He eats at the same four times daily, sleeps for the same seven hours.

Each rule is one more way to stay away from fear and preserve the calm. Enough of them, he thinks, and he won't have to worry any longer.

That's why he likes learning Binary with Sani so much. There are no irregularities as there are with human languages; once you know all the rules, you no longer have to worry.

*

After Starkiller, Solo took Finn on as miscellaneous crew. 

He did not last very long as an apprentice pirate.

He panicked during a cloaked run through Hutt territory, setting off sensors that nearly got them shot down. He lost control again during negotiations with a Rodian cartel. He could have sworn he saw more muscle closing in, so he turned, shouted, fired his blaster. The Rodians spooked, and the deal evaporated.

He couldn't account for his nerves. Sometimes he was fine. Other times, a trick of light or the squeak of the gunner's seat would set him off.

Han and Chewie were getting older, however, and with the injuries he'd sustained at Kylo Ren's hands, Han wasn't much in a fight any longer. 

Finn, however, was increasingly a liability rather than anything like an aid.

*

It was on the return trip from one of their few successful deals that Han stopped at Yavin-IV. Finn wanted to see the old temples and visit the original rebel base. He and Chewie went there, while Han said, in that breezy way he had of hiding his real intentions, that he was just going to "poke around".

After a few hours, he comm'ed them to join him at the second-largest settlement, a hundred clicks from the temples. He met their jitney in the company of another man, his age, about his height, but much broader overall, with a full silver beard and curling hair to match.

Chewie hooted and hurried off to embrace the man. Finn hung back, hands behind his back, unsure of where to look. The three of them were grasping each other's arms and laughing loudly. Before he quite knew what was happening, they were moving off to a nearby bar. Han was in a good enough mood that he was already offering to pay, which was unheard of.

Finn followed them, debating whether he was _supposed_ to, wondering if perhaps he ought to wait outside. How was it that he was more confident about what to do when in the heat of a battle than he was at ordinary times? Times like this, he wished he could disappear.

The bearded man broke off from the group and slowed down until Finn caught up with him.

"Kes," the man said, holding out a big, callused hand. "You must be Finn."

"Yes, sir," Finn said. Kes had a crushing grip and warm, almost hot, palm. 

"Good to finally meet you," Kes said and slung his arm around Finn's shoulders.

Finn stiffened but kept pace with Kes's long strides. He didn't know all the customs across the galaxy -- no one did, he reminded himself, this was hardly a personal failing -- perhaps the Yavin settlers were far more tactile than other groups.

"Finally?" Finn asked. "Do I -- do you --?"

Laughing, Kes shook him a little, then called ahead to Han. "You forget to tell him, General?" To Finn, he added, softly, "typical. Excellent in the field and sky, shit for brains anywhere else."

"Tell me what?"

Kes stopped and turned to face him, both hands now on Finn's shoulders. He blocked Finn's vision, hid Han and Chewie. "You saved my boy's life. Wanted to thank you for that."

Finn shook his head and fought a wave of dizzy nausea. He'd never saved anyone's life. "I don't think so, sir. No."

"Hey," Kes said, even more gently now, hands cupping Finn's neck. "Thank you. That's all. Let me say it."

"All right." Finn swallowed, but it was like breathing sand. He knew, strongly and suddenly, that he didn't want to disappoint this man, whoever he was. "I don't understand--. All right. You're welcome."

"There you go," Kes said, patting Finn's cheek and swinging him around so they were back on the path again. "Was that so hard?"

"No, sir," Finn was saying, when Han looked around the corner of a warehouse up ahead. 

He called, "Dameron, get a move on, would you?"

Finn stopped short and tried to excuse himself. He made a mess of it, of course. He couldn't do this, now that he knew Kes was Poe Dameron's father. If he stayed, he'd have to tell the story _again_ , look at the man whose son he'd gotten killed. He couldn't.

He slept that night in a hostel, then hiked all the way back to the Falcon. He waited another half-day for Han and Chewie to return.

When Han saw him, his shoulders sagged and mouth turned down, and Finn understood all over again what it meant to disappoint someone. Han had stupid, pretty ideas about what fathers and sons could mean to each other; they'd never come true for him, of course. He had, however, hoped that these ideas applied to the Damerons. 

Here Finn had gone and ruined that, too.

*

After a much easier than usual shift, Finn and Sani settle down in the recharging and broom closet to dip back into Love Across the Stars. 

Finn thumbs through the holo's index. "All right, we're just about finished with Alderaan's epics and its elegies. Next up is the Macondo system --"

He enlarges the galactic map so Sani can get a sense of the proximity of the two systems.

"Says here that there's historic cultural links between the two, particularly evident in the tradition of troubadour songs in Macondian."

She flicks out the end of her hose and twines it around his ankle so she can pull herself closer. Finn glances up from the display and smiles. "Comfy?"

"Yes," she says, resting her beak against his shoulder. She likes to keep an eye on the display, lest he skip poems again. (He hadn't wanted to explain the Corellian ode to orgies to her, and he stands by that decision.) "You're going to sing?"

Finn coughs. "No, these are just for reading."

"Troubadour _songs_ , Finn."

"I'm not singing," Finn says as firmly as he can. "Look, there's no music. How can I sing without music?"

Sani clicks her beak a few times as her power source whirrs backward. "All right," she says finally. "Go on."

He reads her a few without incident, but then they reach one called "All of Space, All of Time". Sani straightens her hose, rising over his head, her camera-eye blinking a little. As much as she likes hearing about human love and grief, she's always going to be more partial to the scientific and mathematical.

_When you are asleep and think that in a dream_  
_there is a knocking on the door,_  
_beseeching to enter,_  
_don't bother, it could just be my shadow,_  
_wandering some nights_  
_searching for something to love_.  
  
Soon it's dawn  
_and when the sun rises,_  
_I find my shadow,_  
_and greet it,_  
_here, there,_  
_for tomorrow, for today,_  
_for all of space, for all time._

"No," she says. "A shadow cannot be separated from what casts it. How can a shadow travel in search of love?"

"It's a metaphor," Finn replies. "Maybe just a part of the speaker? His unconscious?"

"Or hers."

"Or hers. Theirs. Its."

Sani unwinds, then moves restlessly across the floor, serpentine, spiralized, back and forth before him. "Of course one finds the shadow at sunrise."

"That's what a shadow is," Finn says, nodding.

She bobs her beak. "I like this song. I wish you [unintelligible] sing."

"That's --" Finn leans forward, clasping his hands. "Is that a new verb form?"

"Conditional verb. Expresses a wish or hope for the future."

"For tomorrow, for today," he says, and, after a moment, she understands the reference and appreciates the humor.

"Across time and space!" she crows, then, just as abruptly, sinks down. "Love is a shadow. You find it already attached to you."

Finn considers that. He's not certain that's what the poem says. On the other hand, it's a pretty idea.

*

The end of his criminal career came during a cargo exchange of smuggled spice for "misplaced" Republican ammunition. Finn got scared enough -- by nothing! by _less than nothing_ \-- that he suddenly couldn't breathe. His vision swam and he lost track of his place in the gantry. He almost shot Chewie.

He'd've gladly shot himself in that moment, done _anything_ to break the vise of shame and regret closing around him. The tension was unbearable and he was helpless, trapped inside it. The only logical escape he could see was to just get it over with.

Instead, he got fired.

"You're no good to me like this," Solo said when it was all over. "You're gonna get --"

"Someone killed," Finn finished for him. He had his hands clasped between his knees, his head down. "Again."

"Yourself hurt, I was going to say," Solo said, his voice tight. After a bit, he added, "That's the last thing anybody wants."

Finn believed that Solo believed what he was saying.

"It's not for everyone, this life."

Finn choked on a laugh. He couldn't even make it as a petty fucking criminal.

"I'm worried about you, it's not just --"

"All the money."

"No."

Han called in a favor or two, got Finn this living capsule and job with Calrissian's real estate concern, set him up with rations and holos. It was much more than Finn had any right to, and shame over that battles with his gratitude every time he thinks about it.

*

"There's something missing," Rey told him, the first time they talked after he got fired. "You're not..." She broke off and shrugged. "Never mind."

"No, go on."

"It's like you're not all here. Mostly shadow? I don't know how to describe it. The Force is...broken up, all silty, around you."

"People get hurt around me. Killed."

"No, not that." She didn't smile, didn't try to reassure him. He was telling the truth, after all. "It's not death. We all trail that. You, though. You're trailing yourself."

He had no idea what she meant. He couldn't even picture it.

*

The next time he hangs out with Sani, she has no time for poetry and definitions of love. All she wants to talk about is the latest datadump on the holo-net.

It's all anyone, humanoid or droid, can talk about right now.

Datadumps from the Republic are fairly common these days; from the First Order, they are much more rare, though they do happen. As a general rule, they happen when factions within ministries or ruling cadres come into conflict. To prove the vulnerability and untrustworthiness of their opponents, some factions will blast enormous caches of miscellaneous data into the holo-net.

The most recent dump is sensational mostly due to the fact that it's from the First Order.

No one knows where the dump of holo-footage came from. Further, no one, so the journalists claim, knows where the various pieces of footage were recorded. There's nearly a standard day's-viewing worth of data; some pieces are only seconds long, while others are hours and more. 

The age of the images is also in dispute. Some is very clearly archival, dating back to the height of the Empire. This includes various ceremonies overseen by Palpatine, some medals awarded by Tarkin and Vader, that sort of thing. Some pieces are just as obviously contemporary, with new-model TIEs featured, or the latest in Ren-fraternal fashion.

The vast majority of images, however, are difficult, even impossible, to date and to locate. Geological formations, ranks of marching prisoners, fog banks, unfurling equations for targeting and trajectory calculations: these could be from anywhere, any time. Without reference to star positions, technology and fashion, the images slip away from certainty. Prisoners are always hollow-cheeked; fog is invariably _foggy_.

"Technical analysis has been no use, either," Rey tells Finn. "Everything's dated a day before the release. Some of it looks literally re-shot, like you can see the wiggle of original holos."

"Someone went to a lot of trouble," Finn says.

She shrugs. "Maybe. Or a lot of people were really messy." She scowls. "No one knows, that's all we know."

He hears that _we_ and swallows against the sour resentment. She's trusted; _she_ gets to belong.

"I was never in holo tech," he tells her. "But you know that."

"Yeah."

"So why are you asking me about this?"

Rey's expression goes blank, just for a moment. If she were sitting across from him, he'd be able to hear the intake of her breath and see the minute adjustment she makes to her posture, squaring her shoulders and straightening her spine, as she pauses long enough to summon necessary patience.

Before she can reply, however, there's a burst of high-pitched Binary from out of visual range. Finn can make out some of it, but then, just as quickly, doubts his translation.

"That sounded like 'go get him'," Finn says. "Or...'fetch' him? Something like retrieval, but of a sentient, not anything inanimate."

Another series of beeps: "No shit, stupid human!"

He grins. "Hi, BB-8."

"No time. Who cares. Tell him. MISSION."

Rey leans into the eye. "Watch this part, will you?"

It's a column of prisoners, all alike in gray overalls, heads down, marching very slowly past a static, low-angle recorder. Given the angle and terrible quality of the holo, Finn would guess this is internal security footage.

"Yes," he says, "the Empire and First Order do love their penal colonies. So?"

"WATCH IT, SHITHEAD," BB-8 spews and Rey hisses at him to shut up.

"I'm replaying it," she tells Finn. The same dull footage trudges past. Most of the prisoners are humanoid, some Togruta, all of them apparently male, if their wide-shouldered, thin frames and beards are anything to go by.

"Humanoid males," Finn recites. He feels like he's back in squad education. Just tell them the facts, keep all interpretation out of it. "Some Togruta and Twi'lek. Could be really old, could be last year. Where's this from?"

"Don't know," Rey's voice says while the footage loops and the same column lumbers past. "What do you make of this?"

"Nothing," Finn says. He squints, stares, then realizes there's nothing _to_ see. "Nothing. Just sad people."

"You're sad people you useless sack of air."

"Thanks, Beeb, you're really kind," Finn says. He's rapidly approaching the limit to his patience with the droid. Sometimes the insults are funny, and it's good to practice Binary, but something about BB-8 can cut too close, actually manage to hurt Finn's feelings. It has to be coincidence; there's no way that BB-8 knows him well enough to target Finn's vulnerabilities with deliberate subroutines of insult and mockery.

It just works out that way in practice.

"Rey, I'm not trying to be useless," Finn says now. "But I don't know what you want me to see. I don't think I'm going to be any help."

"Of course you are not, you are stupid!"

"Here," Rey says, her face fading out to the same depressing footage again. But it's stilled this time, the march halted at last. Three figures fill the viewscreen: a tall humanoid, a Togruta almost as tall, its headtails brutally chopped to stumps, and, bringing up the rear, a smaller humanoid, heavily bearded. They approach the viewer on an oblique angle, looming, hovering, all alike in their gaunt cheeks and dead eyes. "What do you think?"

Finn looks the image over, bottom to top, up and down, back and forth. "They look terrible. I hope they made it out."

"Do you recognize anyone?"

Everything is silent. Finn's eyes start to burn with the effort of looking.

"IT'S POE DAMERON YOU NUMBSKULLED THIEF YOU CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER HIS FACE?!"

"What?" Finn asks, heat spiking and swamping him, his head swimming. "What did he say?"

Rey comes back into view. "He thinks the one in back is Poe Dameron."

Despite himself, Finn laughs. He doesn't want to, nothing about this is funny, but he's startled and, somehow, _scared_. "He died on Jakku."

"I know," Rey says gently.

"Just run the usual diagnostics and recogs on the face," Finn says, "won't they have all of his, his." He can't breathe for a second; he has to wait it out, flexing his hands open and closed until the clutch of anxious fear passes. "All of his data. Biometrics, all --"

"It's all been run," she says, "several times. It's inconclusive. The holo's second-, maybe third-generation copy, from a bad original, so --"

"It's not him," Finn says. The next time he takes a breath, he feels like is falling backwards into a yawning pit. He'll never land, he'll never fly. "It can't be. He's dead."

I got him killed, he thinks.

"All right," Rey says. He think she sounds sad. Disappointed, maybe? "Well. I promised BB-8 we'd try."

"How would I even know? I knew him for half an hour. Most of the time I was behind him or back to back, I don't remember, there's no way to remember what he looks like. Looked like --"

(Finn _does_ remember, he'll never forget, but his memory is nothing to go on. Bright eyes, sweat, curls going limp. Swagger. The scent of him.)

"Close your eyes," Rey suggests. "Don't _try_ to look. And tell me what you think."

"This is stupid," Finn says. "He's dead. I got him killed. And I'm really sorry about that, but this --"

"Useless shitbird!"

"The droid's right," Finn continues, reaching to turn off the connection. "Sorry. The Force isn't going to tell me I'm seeing a dead man." 

"Finn --" she starts but he turns it off, then the lights throughout his capsule, and rolls over in bed. He lies there, face down, wondering if he can just smother himself if he stays still enough.

He's not going to sleep tonight. That's just great. He's shivering and his teeth might as well be clicking loose in his skull and he can't draw a full breath.

*

In the days after Rey's contact, Finn feels worse than usual. He can't decide what's bothering him; there's so much to choose from. He regrets cutting her off, of course. He hates that she apparently still thinks of him as someone who can help, who can accomplish more than running sewer diagnostics and unclogging the mop apparatus in the foyer. He wishes she'd never comm'ed him.

That's where all this ends up, isn't it? Better if he were alone, permanently. There'd be no more disappointment. You can't fail if you're not doing anything.

He drags himself back to his capsule after a double shift. Rather than make himself something to eat, he buys a self-heating pack of dal on the trolley platform and sucks it down before he reaches home.

He doesn't bring up the lights. He pulls off his boots and overalls, squats in the UV 'fresher for the allotted time, then falls onto his bed, facedown.

He's awakened far too early by the insistent vibration of his comms panel. When he rolls over, rubbing his eyes, he says, "Rey? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have --"

"Finn?" It's a man's voice, hoarse, gravelly. When Finn sits up, the man says, "I woke you, I'm very sorry."

"Sergeant Dameron." Finn fixes his posture. The display is warped by low-cost transmission protocols, rippled like the sea just before a storm. "It's all right."

"Kes, please," Dameron says. When he frowns, his beard and mustache nearly meet, his mouth disappearing, and his thick brows droop down. "Just Kes."

"Kes," Finn says, his chest hollow. "All right."

"The general gave me your contact, I hope that isn't a problem. Security-wise."

"No, no, of course not," Finn says. He's cold, his skin feels too tight. "I'm not exactly a valuable asset out here, don't worry."

Kes nods, then leans in. Thanks to the cheap display and bad transmission, his dark eyes look luminescent, something at the bottom of a reef. 

"General said --"

"Solo should've told you --" 

Kes shakes his head. "No, _Calrissian_. He's the one who --. It's not important."

Finn doesn't think Calrissian remembers him one way or the other. His impression was that Calrissian does so many favors for Han, for all of Han's futile causes and shameful overinvestments, that he can't possibly keep track of them all. "I'm not following, sir, I'm sorry."

"Finn," Kes says, then pauses. He takes a deep breath, his shoulders drawing up toward his ears. He wears earrings, Finn notices, thick ones in a heavy, dull metal. "My son's alive."

"Sir, no --" Not again, not again, Finn can't think about the crash _again_. 

"You can help me get him back."

He can't look away. "Sir --"

"Please, Finn. I'm too old. I'm not -- I can't do it on my own --"

Finn doesn't tell him no again. He listens, and nods, and wonders how the hell he's going to let this goodhearted man down. He cut the transmission on Rey, but for some reason, he can't do it again, even to a relative stranger like Kes Dameron.

Maybe he has said no long enough. Maybe he just wants out of this capsule, away from all the security he has meticulously constructed for himself. Maybe he has a death wish.

All these possibilities run through his mind, many times over, in the next day and a half. All the same, he doesn't have time to _think_ about them; they're impressions and suggestions that flit through his mind. He's too busy to think very deeply at all.

He meets Calrissian and Dameron, along with Solo, Skywalker, and Rey, in a secure facility halfway around the moon. He doesn't think he can look Rey in the eye, can barely imagine speaking to her, until she catches him up in a hug that does not end.

She's flushed, glittery-eyed, clutching at him. "I knew you'd come around! I _knew_ it."

"I --" He shakes his head. "I don't know what's happening."

Chewie hugs him, too, and Han claps his shoulder, squeezing it, nodding along without saying anything. Calrissian holds Finn's hand in both of his and says his name like a benediction, like it's an honor just to pronounce the syllable.

Finn tries to shake Kes's hand, but gets pulled into another hug, as big as Chewie's, as strong as Rey's, but much stiller and _longer_ lasting.

Calrissian and Solo both try to lead the meeting, talking over each other, undercutting each attempt to organize things, so, finally, Skywalker nudges Rey. She takes over, so smoothly and confidently that Finn's struck all over again by how much, and how little, she has changed. She always had this strength, but all her gawky nervousness has vanished, leaving a quiet confidence that rivals Skywalker's. She talks to everyone at the table like they're alone with her, catching them all up on the facts. Not only has Kes confirmed that the figure in the footage is Poe -- "he looks exactly like Shara's brother Naden! Besides, I'd know that face _anywhere_ " -- but both Rey and Skywalker have consulted the Force on the matter.

Solo snorts. "Look, I'm all for, you know." He circles his hand. "Respecting the Force."

Now it's Calrissian's turn to laugh; the sound is much more elegant and precise than Solo's snicker, but conveys exactly the same message.

"Thanks, pal," Solo tells him. "I'm just saying, you ask the Force, it's going to tell you any amount of mystical gobbledygook that could mean about a thousand different things! You hear what you want to hear, I mean."

"He's right," Finn says. "How is it supposed to know --"

"It knows," Skywalker says simply. 

"Your evidence is..." Finn stops himself. He was going to say, "a grief-stricken father, a dysfunctional droid, and the Force", but then he realizes, what of it? That's more than most decisions have behind them. He clears his throat. "So what's the plan?"

Solo frowns, leaning over to try to catch Finn's gaze. "You okay, kid?"

"Never better," Finn tells him, and it's _true_. His head is clearing, moment by moment. He can breathe. He looks around the table. "What do you need to me to do?"

They're all quiet -- not, it seems, out of reluctance, but deference. To him? That can't be right.

Finally, Kes clears his throat. "Bring him back, please."

They've determined that Poe Dameron -- or a man who looks a lot like him and his maternal uncle -- is being held on one of the First Order's prison planetoids, Pozaba. With a rocky surface and ambient daytime temperature of -5° C, there's no need for much, if any, penal infrastructure and few guards. Just dump the poor souls there and be done.

Finn catches himself thinking like a trooper again when he wonders why not just kill them instead? The power of these places, he knows without realizing _how_ he knows, lies in how long the pain lasts, how persistent it is, how one never knows if the sentence will end.

The Resistance can't spare anything for what looks -- to anyone outside this room -- a pointless, desperate excursion. Skywalker apologizes for that, but he needn't. He and Rey are too valuable to waste, everyone knows that. For their parts, Kes, Solo, and Calrissian are too old to take the risk.

So it's Finn who'll be dropped planetside.

A rapid series of whistles and beeps interrupts Rey. She frowns at Finn, as if in apology, and adds, "Along with BB-8."

"No," Finn says. "No way. I want to do this, I'm going to do this, but I --" 

"I don't like it, either!" BB-8 trills.

"I don't think my Binary's good enough yet," Finn says and tries to arrange his expression into something that looks pained, regretful, overcome with resignation. "I'm sorry, it would be a great idea otherwise, but --"

"You're useless," BB-8 says. "But you're the only option for getting me there."

Finn looks around the table. "What's he talking about?"

"It won't be permanent," Rey tells him.

"Thank heaven for small favors!" BB-8 chirps.

*

At least it's not permanent! 

He keeps repeating that to himself during the procedure, both as reassurance and as bitter, bitter irony. BB-8 can't accompany him in-the-(metal)-flesh, because Finn's going to pose as a newly arrived convict, but he won't let them run this mission without his direct participation.

So Finn has a small disk inserted under the nape of his neck, equipped with bioelectromagnetic-cilia that find and cling to his brain stem. By the time the _Falcon_ has made three hyperjumps toward Pozaba, the interface between BB-8's mind and Finn's brain is at 83%.

For the last leg of the journey, he and Rey transfer to a tiny old rustbucket of a shuttle. It is so old that it no longer appears in most modern hailing system catalogs. In other words, it's invisible due to its sheer obsolescence.

Rey is an even better pilot than she was the last time he flew with her, but even so, Finn fears for his life as she brings the ship into a low orbit over Pozaba. Everything on-board is trembling, from his hands to the instrument panels and O₂ seals.

His absorption of BB-8 has reached 97%. He's already wearing the atmospheric-penetration suit; he just has to shoulder the pack that will unfold into ration-stocked parka when he reaches the surface. If he reaches the surface alive, that is. Finn has his doubts about this mission, but there's nothing to lose in trying.

When the ship nears its passage over Pozaba's main continent, Rey kisses his cheek, pushes the pack onto his back, and opens the screeching cargo bay door. The frigid wind rushing in makes it impossible to hear anything she might be saying, so Finn waves to her, mouths "I love you", and tips forward, just like the holo-training taught him to do, into the clouds.

From there, the suit does all the work.

"Whatever you do, don't land on your head," is the first thing Finn hears BB-8 say from inside his skull. "I want to get out of here in one piece."

 

He lands only about forty kilometers off-target. Given the fierce winds and heavy snow, that might as well be a bull's eye.

He's supposed to locate the shuttle port where new prisoners are delivered, and from there set out for what some sources suggest is the planet's central barracks. If he can, he's to blend in with other new arrivals; if he can't, the parka and flight suit should provide sufficient protection from the elements for a good long time.

There are so many variables at play, it's enough to make Finn _itch_. He should be worrying, anxiously turning over each unknown factor so that he can start spinning out terrible consequences. But, so far, he isn't. He's hiking, trying to stay warm, trying to make some progress.

The first thing, the strangest thing, he notices about having BB-8 inside of him is the maps. If he looks too long in any one direction without blinking, BB-8 brings up a map, green like the projections they used in the meeting, but overlaying Finn's own vision. There's the black and gray landscape, shadows and snow flurries, but hovering above it all, glowing green lines with labels too small to make out.

"How am I supposed to use this?" Finn mutters, pausing again at the next rise and looking out over the crimped, dull-colored horizon.

"It's a map," BB-8 tells him. "It shows where landmarks are and distances between them."

"I know what a map is."

"Do you?"

"Fine, forget it."

"You don't have to speak aloud, either."

"I want to." He _needs_ to, in fact. If he lets the droid converse with his thoughts, he'll feel worse about this than he already does.

"Okay, but you seem crazy."

"Fine by me," Finn says. "How far to the shuttle port?"

One label on the map increases in brightness until it's nearly blinding. Seventeen kilometers. 

"Thank you," Finn says and does not add, _was that so hard?_

"No," BB-8 answers anyway. "A waste of my talents, as a matter of fact."

"Shut it."

"You shut it."

"How about we both shut it, unless there's sudden and unavoidable danger?"

"All right. First one to talk has to take first watch?"

"Fair enough."

As Finn hikes on, the snowfall gets heavier, until he's simply placing one foot in front of the other and hoping that he's staying on course. The map display comes in handy for that. When he glances over his shoulder, he can only see the last several footprints; everything beyond that is swept over by wind and fresh snow and darkness.

He switches his walking stick to the other hand when he starts the descent from the narrow ridge. He can _just_ make out the lights around the shuttle landing, barely bigger than his own thumb. They jump and lurch against the manifold darkness. 

With three-quarters of a kilometer to go, Finn veers west to make a long loop around the landing area. From the shuttle port, it's another twenty kilometers or so to the main barracks. 

He's trying to decide whether to bed down to wait out the storm before starting that last section of the hike or to push on. He's so cold already.

"Watch it!" BB-8 suddenly says and Finn laughs.

It took longer for the droid to break the pact of silence, but Finn knew he would, sooner or later.

"First watch, loser," Finn mutters, just as something enormous, far taller than he, trundles across his path.

He drops to a crouch and goes as still as he can. The thing looks like the pod off an old cargo shuttle, set on long runners, drawn by a huge animal covered in hair and breathing steam. When its four paws stamp the ground, they make a hollow, ringing sound.

He stares at it for as long as he can without blinking so BB-8 can do a visual analysis.

"What the hell is that?" he thinks as loudly as he can.

"Vehicle, assembled from T6 cargo shuttle, drawn by unknown mammalian."

"That's great," Finn whispers. "I already knew all of that."

"T6 cargo shuttle number 598-347-1, originally Imperial issue, last logged in port Lothal-II seven years ago."

"That port was never First Order territory," Finn says, then wonders how he can be so confident. "Was it?"

"No," BB-8 replies. "Possibly it was commandeered after last known port log."

"And brought here to be chopped up?" 

"Maybe," BB-8 says. "I can't really say."

Finn laughs again, just once, then claps his hand over his mouth. When he exhales, the breath breaks in steam past his nose, blurring out the lights of the shuttle landing.

"What about the mammalian?" he thinks, desperate to stay on topic.

"Unknown," BB-8 repeats.

"That's impossible. Nothing's just unknown." Of course there are plenty of unknown factors in the galaxy, but in terms of recognized species -- especially ones the size of a yearling Bantha -- there are few, if any, mysteries left.

"And yet," BB-8 says. "No analogue exists for that animal."

"The briefing materials said there were no fauna bigger here than snow fleas and ice crabs."

"Yes," BB-8 says. The comment would sound serene if he weren't a droid incapable of very much inflection at all.

"That was way bigger than a million snow fleas!"

"Or 650,000 ice crabs."

"That's..." Finn shakes his head. "You're not helping."

"Oh, I'm _sorry_ ," BB-8 says. "Mathematical comparisons and proportions are very inexact, Finn!"

Finn turns back toward the shuttle landing. He can't put his finger on it, but there's something about the lights he doesn't like. If a flight isn't due in, and nothing can land, not in this weather, what are the lights doing on? What's the power generating those lights? And wouldn't it be better conserved, or used for warmth?

He gets about a kilometer and a quarter back before BB-8 finally asks what's going on.

"Shuttle port," Finn says. His lips crack in the cold. Maybe thinking _is_ the better choice.

"Mapped and filed," BB-8 says. "You just had to ask."

"I want to check for myself."

"Because you're so much better at this? Please."

Finn hauls himself up a trail beacon, hand over hand, so he can look down at the port. "Is this what you're like with Poe? When you're flying?"

"Yes. But _he_ listens to me."

"Sure he does." Finn leans into the wind, squinting against the snow; after a moment he could swear was characterized by _reluctance_ , his vision is sharpened and enlarged by BB-8, bringing up a good view of the lights.

"Always! And right away. You dawdle."

"I thought you said he was smart."

BB-8 projects the image of a tiny shock-gripper over Finn's vision. It sizzles to suggest electricity.

"That's...not very painful, you know that, right?"

"It's a promise," BB-8 says. "For later."

"We have bigger problems than that right now," Finn tells him.

The shuttle lights aren't anything remotely technical. They're nothing but fire jars, like they use on desert planets to guard camps at night. 

The landing site itself is churned up, jagged with rocks and clawed dirt blown clean of snow.

From a trail beacon just like the one he's gripping in a numb hand, bent into a rough gibbet, a naked human body swings. It smacks the rocks, careens back against the upright portion of the gallows, spins dizzily. Its skin is mottled blue, cold and bruised.

 _Please don't be Poe,_ Finn thinks. _Anything but that._

"Not him. Too tall, pubic hair suggests redhead."

Finn nods. There's something bitter in his mouth, clouding his eyes for a minute.

"Get out of here," BB-8 suggests, almost kindly. "Let's go hide."

"Smart," Finn says. He drops down to the ground and creeps back toward the ridge.

"Thank you!"

He creeps into a narrow wedge of forest and chews a ration bar, thinking.

The trees here don't seem alive. They are dark as iron and just as cold and hard to the touch. If they ever sprout leaves, which he doubts, those leaves must be spiky things the size and lethalness of an EMP grenade.

BB-8 is quiet as Finn moves on.

When they reach the outskirts of the barracks area, nothing looks right. Finn expects the standard First Order modular huts, as long as Bantha stables, with the pitched roofs. They didn't have any word on how many buildings there might be on Pozaba, but Finn has been estimating three to five.

There are no barracks. Instead, a huge number of small shacks, big enough for two, maybe three, people at a time crowd the level outcropping. The shacks are in all possible states, from upright and new to ramshackle and already fallen-down. They are built in no particular order; even when Finn climbs one of the iron trees to get a better view, there is no pattern at all to their construction _or_ layout. 

This isn't a First Order facility, not any more. It looks like any number of hardscrabble settlements across the galaxy.

It used to be First Order, however, or Imperial -- there are traces of the barracks material in the walls and roofs of the shacks, Imperial ID-numbers and FO shuttle viewports converted into shingles.

Most of the shacks sport wide-mouthed chimneys. The smoke escaping them contributes to the gray, eye-watering haze hugging the encampment.

"Approximately five hundred sentients are present," BB-8 tells Finn. 

"All right," Finn says. He doesn't know what to do now. He grips the lowest branch of the tree and tries to think. "Thanks."

"Not as many as estimated."

"Not here, anyway." That's his main worry. If the barracks have been disassembled and this settlement taken their place, there could very well be other settlements, all over the planet. Poe could be anywhere, if he's here at all.

"We'll find him," BB-8 says.

"Stop _doing_ that," Finn mutters.

"Doing what?"

"Reading my mind, it's --"

BB-8 doesn't reply. Not, that is, in words; Finn does get a brief, hot surge of hope, out of nowhere.

"Did you just dose me with serotonin?"

After several long moments, filled only by the howl of the wind and timp-timp of ice pellets against Finn's parka, BB-8 says, "...maybe?"

"Don't do that, either."

"You need to think positively!"

"Maybe," Finn says, "but I can do that on my own."

"Since when?"

It's Finn's turn to be quiet. He hikes back the way he came, then turns, heading for the thicker stand of iron trees. He's going to bed down for a couple hours, have some ration bars, and see if the rest brings him a flash of brilliance.

It isn't particularly warmer among the trees, but they do block out a good deal of the wind. It is, at least, quieter in here. Finn eats three ration bars, then considers breaking into a self-heating soup. It's very tempting, but he can't indulge himself just because he's a bit lost.

As he digs his chin into the collar of his parka, he says, "Look, BB-8, if Poe's not here --"

"He's here."

"I want him to be, too. But if --" Finn closes his eyes. The black trunks of the trees now dance like white bars of light behind his lids. He conjures up the old, favorite memory, the one that he's carried all this way: Poe's sweaty face, aglow, excited and exhilarated and probably severely concussed, when he agreed to fly them off the _Finalizer_. His lips were redder than the blood streaking his face. He nodded furiously, he even grinned.

"He is."

Finn bangs his fist against his thigh. "Let me finish!"

"Fine."

"If he's not here, I don't want you to --" He doesn't know what BB-8 might do. Probably nothing, but being this close to him, literally intertwined, is making Finn more concerned about the droid's state than he'd have ever thought possible.

"It wouldn't be your fault."

"Thanks," Finn says, startled and, honestly, touched. BB-8 has blamed him for the Jakku crash for so long that it simply stands to reason that this failure, too, will be on Finn's shoulders. "Really. But --"

"It wasn't the first time, either."

"What?"

"Losing him. Not your fault."

Finn opens his mouth, then closes it. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything," BB-8 tells him. 

"But --"

"Finn!" The call isn't actually audible, but BB-8's tone is insistent enough that Finn nearly jumps. "Three figures, six meters."

"Fuck," Finn says, rolling behind the nearest tree. "Weapons?"

"I'm not _that_ powerful," BB-8 says. "If you'd bothered to upgrade my viz --"

"Never mind," Finn hisses. "Speed?"

"Normal humanoid walking pace."

"Okay, they might not be --"

"Second party approaching from the north. Two meters."

Finn exhales through his mouth and fights for calm. He can see perfectly how this could end. Dying here, among trees that look like weapons, freezing below a snow-stirred sky, bleeding out into the shadows. It could all happen so easily.

But it won't. It _can't_. He's well-armed. No one _knows_ he's here. He's going to get through this.

He has to get through this, not just for Poe, but BB-8, and Kes. Rey and Chewie, even Solo.

He hasn't felt this confident since Takodana, maybe earlier. Before Starkiller shot the Hosnian system out of the sky, that is.

He crawls forward on his elbows, right up into the razor-sharp roots of another tree. On one knee, he pulls himself up, fishing the micro-blaster from his sleeve and flipping it into his glove.

The second party is a singular figure, heavily bundled up against the cold, trudging across Finn's position at a highly acute angle. It's dragging a small sled that rattles with iron branches, but it stops just past Finn's position.

The first party makes a lot of noise as they approach, stomping their boots and laughing. They sound like senior troopers, back just in time before curfew, drunk out of their minds.

"Who's there?" one of them shouts and Finn slips a little lower. He's fairly sure they've spotted the lone figure with the sled, but he wouldn't bet anything on that. "Hey, little stranger, what're you bringing home for daddy?"

Finn frowns, simultaneously confused and revolted by the lecherous tone. The speaker's companions are roaring with laughter and pounding on his back.

The lone figure doesn't answer. Finn charges his blaster; he doesn't know why. Maybe it's just a precaution. That's probably all it is.

"Eh, little one? What's that?" The three are closing the distance, but Finn is, not quite exactly between them, but very close to it.

"You're in the way," BB-8 whispers to the back of Finn's skull.

"Thanks," Finn replies without opening his mouth. "How do I get out of here?"

"Roll west-southwest," BB-8 says, "or --"

"Hey, what's this?" one of the three calls, kicking at Finn's leg, then hauling him up by the back of his parka hood. "Come to the party without an invitation?"

He's so swaddled with scarves and other bits of fabric that Finn never gets much of an impression of him -- just bloodshot eyes, terrible-smelling breath, and immense strength, more than enough to hold Finn dangling from his fist. 

Finn kicks out, connecting with the man's groin, then throws himself _toward_ the other two as he fires his blaster. The man doesn't let Finn go easily; he drags on Finn's arm, wrenching it sickeningly in the shoulder joint before taking a blaster bolt to the chest. Finn's shot arcs around and catches another of the three, taking off half his face.

"Run!" Finn yells at the person with the sled. "Get out of --"

"Or you could blast them all away," BB-8 finally finishes saying. It's only been a second, maybe two. Finn's landing on his side, already firing again. This time it's wide, and the shot connects with the upper branches of one of the trees. Blue sparks cascade down, just ahead of a huge ringing, bouncing branch.

The third figure stares, gobsmacked, up at the sparks until the branch connects with his face. He staggers, but doesn't fall. Finn slams down the recharge stopper, but the person with the sled is coming closer. 

"Run!" Finn shouts again, but the smaller figure takes another step. Toward the staggering man, only to drop his shoulder and drive the giant backward into the trunk; he grabs the fallen branch and straightens up, already swinging the branch at the man's torso.

"What're you _doing_?" Finn asks, not loudly enough to be heard, simply because he's lost again. He'd chosen the solitary figure as his ally for no reason other than that he, too, was alone, threatened by the three louts. But that isn't, necessarily, good enough reason. 

Finn's shoulder screeches with pain as he pulls himself to his feet, making a wide circle around the fight. He can't feel BB-8 in his head any longer, not through the pain. 

The bigger man fights back, snarling, with fists wrapped in fabric and heavy, cleat-soled boots. The sound of breaking ribs is nauseating. Finally, however, he's on his back, writhing and whimpering.

He goes quiet after the smaller man stomps once on his neck.

Through the pain in his arm, Finn gradually tunes in to the sound of the assailant's own heavy breathing. Bent at the waist, he's holding himself up with a hand on the trunk, one foot still on the dead man's neck. His breath billows out around him like a shroud.

"Get out of here," he mutters as Finn, cautiously, creeps toward him. The snow gives him away, creaking beneath his boot. "I don't want more trouble --"

BB-8 might be dosing Finn again, because he is suddenly dazzled by heat and hope, washed in warm, bright tides, as he touches the man's arm, urging him to turn. They are about the same height, though the man's still sagging in exhaustion. He does turn, and Finn blinks against exhilaration and relief, because there are those dark, bright eyes, heavy brows, unmistakably the long-dead but never-forgotten Poe Dameron. Bearded, what little skin visible chapped and reddened by the cold, sharp-cheeked with hunger, but him, definitely him.

"Poe? Poe Dameron. You're alive," Finn says, squeezing Poe's shoulder as Poe falls at him. He hugs him like Finn's the only lifeline in a hurricane, holds him close. The whimpering now isn't from the fallen man, it's the two of them, well past speech, carried away by something much older and needier.

BB-8 stays silent. Quieter than that: absent.

There's a corpse tripping them up, a windchill of -30° battering at them, and still they sway together. 

"You're hurt," Poe says, brows creased in something much starker than polite concern.

Finn could say no, he's fine, but all he can do is nod, gulp at the air, nod some more.

Before anything else, explanations or histories, Finn's shoulder needs to be set. He's been crying, the tears frozen to his face, from pain and relief. His parka is open now, the cold sinking fast through him.

"Don't hate me," Poe says, placing the heel of his hand against the dislocated joint. 

"I wouldn't --"

Poe shakes his head, curt and sharp, and frowns as he drives his hand up. Finn cries out, pain slicing hot and fast, forking, making him retch. He sags against Poe for a moment, then blinks away the fresh tears and takes in a full breath.

The worst of the agony has vanished. In its wake, remembered pain still throbs and bristles, but nothing like it was.

Poe's hands are shaking, his eyes downcast, as he fastens Finn's parka back up.

"Poe --" 

"We have to hide these guys," he says, turning away.

"But --" Finn tries to say, only to get that curt headshake again.

"If anyone finds out there's a blaster on-planet," Poe says, tipping out the branches from his sled, "all hell's going to break loose. We buy time, hide the evidence."

"What are you talking about?"

"Help me get this one on."

One by one, they load the sled and, side by side, drag the corpses deeper into the woods. It takes them both to pull the sled. In a shallow depression surrounded by lightning-felled trees, they dump the bodies, cover them with branches and moss, and hope for the snow to do the rest of the work. Poe doesn't speak much.

"Who were they?" Finn asks as they limp back to the clearing. He's favoring his hurt shoulder, which he knows better than to do, but he's exhausted. He tries to kick snow over the bloodstains. "What's this about blasters?"

Poe doesn't answer as he reloads the branches on his sled and sets off.

Poe's dwelling is well outside of the settlement; Finn had actually passed it when he entered the iron forest. Half cave, half depression in the uneven ground, surrounded by trees, it looks like nothing at all.

He crawls in after Poe, along a distance about the same as his own height, doubled. Even though he leads with his good shoulder and drags the bad one, he's aching and panting by the time the crawl is over. Once through the passage, however, the space opens up as the cold ground tilts down, and a man can almost stand up. The permafrost walls are lined with more scavenged sheet metal and woven lichen.

Poe sheds two overcoats, revealing heavy trousers and a stained sweater too large for him. He sinks down onto the edge of the platform that runs along the far wall, then leans over to unlace his knee-high boots. His hands are still shaking, however, and it's clear that his fingers are numb.

"Let me," Finn says.

"What?" Poe stares at him blearily, the ice on his eyelashes turning back to water. For half a hysterical second, Finn thinks that Poe's forgotten who he is, why he's here.

"Your boot," Finn says. He pushes Poe's hands out of the way. It takes a while, both of them breathing heavily, as he works out the iced-over mess of knots on one boot, then the other. Finally Poe's lifting his feet free and peeling off wet, cold socks. 

"Thank you," Poe says. He reaches down for Finn's hand and squeezes it. His face is a series of hollows, shadows and cold, texture of beard and hoarse voice: a sketch of a man, barely better off than the corpse on the gibbet.

"Should we --" Finn looks around the hovel. "Fire?"

Poe shakes his head. "Can't risk it. Smoke gives me away."

Finn gives him two ration bars from his parka and fetches dry socks from the basket Poe points to. He sits down next to Poe on the platform and thinks, as clearly as he can, _BB-8? A little help?_

Nothing. His arm hurts and Poe's holding himself like he's hurt, too.

"Your ribs," Finn says, kicking himself for not understanding sooner. "You all right?"

Poe nods, chewing the last bite. "Had worse."

Finn laughs a little. "That's not exactly reassuring."

Poe gives him a smile, small and sad and cold, the shadow of the ghost of the one Finn has kept close, but still, something. "Sleep now. Explain later."

"All right."

He is exhausted. Each muscle aches and throbs according to its own particular cadence; the chorus of weariness is chaotic and slightly nauseating.

Poe is already lying back on the platform, pulling a heavy, rudely-stitched patchwork blanket over himself.

"Can you get the light?" he asks softly. "Please."

Finn thinks of his capsule, everything smooth and clean, the lights controlled to the micro level. Here, he lifts the lid off the flame jar that Poe ignited when they arrived, blows out the smoky, sour-smelling fire, and the darkness billows back to fill up the room.

Finn trips, barks his shin against the edge of the sleeping platform, and hears Poe chuckle.

"Laughing at me?" Finn asks, crawling up into the narrow space between Poe and the lichen-patched wall.

"A little," Poe says after a bit.

"Fine way to treat your rescuer."

"My hero," Poe says. "Came for me twice, hm?"

He lifts the blanket and shifts, and Finn wiggles in. With Finn's parka as the first layer, then the blanket pressed smothering-hard atop that, they might almost get warm, given enough time.

"Closer," Poe says, drawing Finn toward him, until knees are slotted together, temples pressed against each other, arms tangled up. "Better?"

Finn takes his time responding. He hurts, he's tired, he's so cold. "Yes, much."

Poe's beard tickles Finn's own cheek. He sighs a little when, trying to adjust, Finn's fingertips slide under his sweater hem. "Stay," he says when Finn goes still, so Finn holds on, fingers curled.

It's humid under here, and close. 

 

When Finn wakes, he doesn't know if it's morning. The light in here is as smoky and uncertain as it was before he slept. Sweat coats his body; when he shifts, he gets a catches the sharp, spiky scent of himself. Poe lies on his side, facing Finn, one hand over his mouth.

Finn has to piss, and roll over, off his hurt shoulder, but he waits. His eyes gradually adjust so he can make out more details, more of Poe, the length of his lashes and rough surface of his skin, the white moving serpentine through his dark hair, the depth of the furrow in the skin between his brows.

"Finn," Poe says without seeming to stir. "Finn."

"Sorry."

"What for?" Poe's eyes finally flutter open, his hand falling away from his mouth. "I was thinking it was even odds last night was just a snow-terror."

"No," Finn says. The cold creeps over his body now, reminds him of the extent and limits of his skin. He's half-hard, too, and thinks Poe might be as well. Their legs are still tangled up, their hips pressed together.

Bodies like animals, responding to the simplest stimulation. Forward to warmth, skitter away from cold and dark.

"We should get up," Poe says. He does not sound at all enthusiastic.

Finn doesn't answer. He does slip onto his back, and Poe comes with him, settling against his side. He can definitely feel Poe's erection now, tucked against Finn's hip.

"Been awhile," Poe says a little later. He could mean anything. "You?"

"Sure," Finn says. Since he slept well? Since he shared a bed. Since his mind felt quite this settled, expectant and calm. "Long time."

They doze a little while longer. Poe's breathing whistles against Finn's neck. When they wake again, both ravenous, they feast on Finn's ration bars before braving the cold room. Poe shows him the piss jar and crawlspace toward the latrine. From there, Finn realizes that the room is built into the roots of the trees; they circle and grip its walls. On the far side of the latrine, the wall is much thinner, judging by the hollow thump Finn's hand makes against it. He tries again, and the wall shifts open like a rough-hewn door. He finds himself staring down another crawlspace, into a second hovel, much like Poe's, but empty.

How many people used to live here? And where did they go?

When Finn returns, there's a pan of melted snow for washing up. Poe has brewed something like tea, a pale sludge that tastes better than it looks and stays hot in Finn's belly much longer than he expects.

They're going to clear out of here, they decide.

Finn doesn't entirely follow Poe's summary of the social divisions here, but he does grasp, immediately, that the men they killed last night were part of the Hench group, former guards and particularly vicious prisoners who form what amounts to the ruling class here. 

"Prisoners and guards working together," Finn says, nodding a little. Poe starts to explain, but Finn shakes his head. "No, I've seen it before. Troopers used to call them Blockdicks."

Poe grins. "That's...colorful."

"Officially, they're Blockboss," Finn explains. "Senior troopers in good with the commanders, extra power over the rest of the barracks. But, you know."

"Dicks, yeah."

The Hench possess the planet's only transmitters, control the shuttle landings, sift through and select their favorites from new arrivals.

"We can go east," Poe says, "head for one of the upland camps." He frowns, staring into his bowl. "They're probably still there. Some of them."

They think well together, Finn realizes as they firm up the plans. It isn't simply that Poe has the native knowledge while Finn remembers larger-scale topological and meteorological information, but that together they're able to craft a decent strategy relatively quickly. They're patient with each other, respectful, attentive.

As they pack up necessities, Poe is quiet again. Finn left his own dwelling without letting himself look back, but he regrets that. Regrets not saying goodbye to Sani, regrets not pausing to fix the place in his memory. He assumes that leavetaking is affecting Poe, and tries to give him space - if not physically, at least verbally.

He's worried about BB-8. The sense of absence remains, but Finn's unsure if he's just imagining that, inserting what he thinks it _should_ feel like. The inverse of presence should be perceptible, shouldn't it?

When Poe's nearly finished, he kneels on the floor to roll up foodstuffs in his heavy blanket. The light from the fire-jar catches him, enlarges his shoulders and grin when Finn smiles at him.

"What's up?" Poe asks.

"Nothing. You look like your father," Finn says.

Poe stops what he's doing. "What?"

"I said, you look like --"

"Huh." Poe shakes his head, marveling a little. "So you met Kes, huh?"

"A couple times."

"Usually, everyone says --" Poe pinches the bridge of his nose. "Used to say, that is. That I took after my mom."

"He said something about her brother?"

Poe stares at him. "She didn't have a brother."

"Naden?" Finn thinks that's the name. "He said the footage, you looked like Naden."

"That's his prize goat-lizard stud."

Finn sits back on his heels. He can't stop smiling. "Damn. Good for him. He played us, he really --"

"Asshole," Poe says, viciously. "Asshole. _Fuck_."

"What? What's wrong? He believed you were alive, he --"

"Fucking optimistic bastard!" Poe heaves the belt with which he was tying the bundle at the wall; it bounces off and clatters across the floor. "Selfish _fuck_ , playing the Resistance for his own --"

"The Resistance? No."

Poe scowls at him, nearly unrecognizable now. "What?"

"I'm not with the Resistance," Finn says. It's easier to say these days than it used to be, but that doesn't mean very much. "They -- they couldn't afford to, to. Trust me."

"So why? Why are you here?" Poe's eyes go wide and he starts to scramble backward. He's clutching at his temples, twisting brutally at his own hair "Fuck. Fuck. You're -- you're with --"

Finn holds up his hands. "I'm not anything. I'm here to find you, that's all. Find you, bring you home."

"I'm losing it." Poe's eyes are wild, his voice pitched high enough to crack. "He's in my head _again_ , he's always there, he --"

"No," Finn says, as firmly as he can. "You're not. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Yeah. Finally, it's about time, I'm done --" Poe drops his head, chin hitting his chest, his hands still buried in his hair.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Finn says. "Not here to scare you, either."

Poe mutters into his sweater. "You should, though. I deserve it."

Finn doesn't, can't, follow. "Poe --"

"It would be a mercy," Poe says. "Do it, get it over with, finish me off. Beautiful."

"Poe." With just a faint twinge to his bad shoulder, Finn pulls off his under-jersey and spreads out his parka. One by one, he lays out his weapons and armaments. He's stripped bare, prickling with the cold, imploring. "This is all I have. I'm not here to hurt you."

Poe laughs at that, like he's choking on his own breath. In the tangle of his hair, his fingers are crooked and bone-white.

"Look at me," Finn says. " _Please_."

After a long moment, the length of several harsh breaths, Poe does lift his face and meet Finn's eyes.

"Helping you was one of two decent things I ever did in my life," Finn starts. Something jabs his ear, as if from the inside, and his back arches as he groans involuntarily. "There you are."

Poe's got one hand planted on the floor between them, peering at Finn. He might be concerned, or hopeful, or just confused. "What's wrong?"

BB-8 is finally coming back online. Finn feels the burst of happy chatter, the gold-edged rosy view of Poe's face, all of BB-8's reactions cascading through his own sensorium.

Finn takes a deep breath and exhales open-mouthed. He must look like he's yelling. As holo-light pours past his lips, it spins to form a quarter-life-size model of BB-8's usual form, already beeping and whistling as it takes shape. Most of Finn's cognitive capacity is devoted to transmitting BB-8's projections. He is only dimly aware of Poe and the room, as if they've floated in on a dream. 

When it's over, Finn doesn't know how much time has passed. He's slumped on the floor, shivering from more than the cold.

"Shit." Poe kneels beside him. "You all right?"

Finn pushes up a little. "Now do you believe me?"

"Hell," Poe says, a slight smile dawning, "that just made me feel crazier."

"Damn it," Finn says and smiles back. "Now what do I do?"

"Can you walk?" Poe gives him a hand up. "It's getting dark, we can make a lot of progress if we go now."

"Get up, Finn!" BB-8 chirps.

Finn takes a moment to find his balance, then gets dressed again. He shares out the weapons with Poe before fastening his parka and shouldering his bundle.

"Do you need a minute? To...say goodbye, or something?" he asks from the crawlspace.

Poe barks out a laugh. "Fuck, no. Sooner I put this place behind me, the better."

*

They hike for hours. Poe knows trails that Finn would never have been able to discern, however, and they cover much more distance than Finn expected. By the middle of the night, they are nearly all the way up the switchback trail leading to the highlands. The trees are taller here, frighteningly so, spiked with sharp needles that catch and tear their clothing and exposed skin.

"Natural defenses," Finn says wryly when they pause to eat and rest. He's taken off one glove to pluck out all the needles he can reach. "C'mere, you've got --"

Poe looks at him for a long moment, then seems to shake himself awake. "How? How do you want me?"

"Back to me," Finn says, tipping Poe's head down. There are needles in his hair, the weave of his hat, the surprisingly soft skin of his neck. Poe shivers against him, so Finn slips his free arm around his chest to hold him close and still. His thumb and forefinger are almost numb from both the cold and the low-level toxin in the needles. 

"Thanks," Poe says when Finn's finished. Finn takes his time unlocking his arm and letting Poe turn back around. Poe touches the back of his hat, his nape. "You're good at this."

"Cleaning things up, it's my calling," Finn says. "Wherever I go, there I am, tidying."

"Sure," Poe replies, grinning and clapping Finn's knee. "Makes sense, I'm a total mess."

They're both laughing now, but nothing was actually all that funny. The laughter is uncomfortable, and relieved, and soon enough they're back on their feet, heading deeper into the woods, higher up the mountain.

The trail narrows the higher they climb, until they're single file, slipping with each step on the slick ice. Poe pauses, one hand on his walking stick, the other on Finn's shoulder. He looks around, several times.

"Two abandoned dwellings, two and four hundred meters," BB-8 tells Finn; Finn relays the information and Poe grins.

"You two are the best, thanks."

"See?" BB-8 crows. "He's a _good_ partner."

"Yes," Finn says. "He is, I never said otherwise."

Poe looks over his shoulder. "What's he saying?"

"You're a great partner," Finn says. "And I agreed, no question, but he's still cackling like he's won an argument."

Grinning, Poe grasps Finn's shoulder again, leaning in to look into his eyes. "Be nice, Beeb. Finn's our friend."

"I know! I told him that," BB-8 says. A little more calmly, he adds, "I told him all about you, Finn, he was _very_ impressed."

Finn thinks that he ought to feel trapped here, interposing between two best friends like this. Instead, he's simply smiling and nodding. "Thanks," he thinks at BB-8, and to Poe, he says, "he and I are good now. But thanks."

The dwellings here are shacks built into the trees, several meters over the ground. As they climb up the rough ladder, little more than lumps of stone stuck into the trunk, the snow gets heavier. It's been snowing on and off during the entire hike, but the speed and heaviness of this fall makes the earlier snow seem about as harmless as a baby's burps.

The shack sways a little in the wind, but inside it's well-insulated. They can build a small fire in the stove in the corner and suck down soup.

"If anyone comes by," Poe tells him, "stay in the bedroll, all right? Pretend you're asleep."

Finn frowns. "All right. Why?"

"I don't think anyone will," Poe continues, "this is just a precaution. I don't --. We can't explain who you are, not yet."

"All right," Finn says. He's shaking out the parka, drying it before the stove. The fire makes such a difference; he's almost comfortable here in just his jersey and trousers.

Poe rips open another packet of soup. "We need to get you roughed up, see."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You look too good, man. Way too good." Poe grins at him, frankly appreciative, his eyes taking in all of Finn slowly enough that Finn could swear he feels a hot prickle over his skin in the wake of their movement. "Which, believe me, is the best thing that's happened to me in _years_ \--"

"Better than getting out of here?"

Poe's grin tilts into a smirk. "That hasn't happened yet. So it's still you."

"All right," Finn says, "I'll try to enjoy my brief reign, then."

"Good man. Now what needs to happen is --" Poe sets aside the soup and takes Finn by the shoulders. He cocks his head, looking Finn over. Studying him. "Where to even start?"

For some reason, BB-8 chortles, deep inside Finn's brainstem. His pure amusement transfers right to Finn, makes Finn chuckle, too.

Poe looks at him askance. "What?"

"I don't know," Finn says helplessly. "BB-8's giggling so now I am?"

"Jerk," Poe says, his tone light. "Hey, Beeb, can you give us some privacy?"

There's another pause; Finn gets the distinct sense that BB-8 is thinking the request over and weighing his response. "Fine," he finally says. "Have fun!"

"He said..." Finn starts but Poe's hands, thick fingerless gloves on his palms, cold and rough fingertips moving antically, are on Finn's neck now. " _Oh_."

He kisses Poe first. It would be easy to give BB-8 credit for that, for pushing him into the gesture, but the droid has shut down, and this is all Finn, tired and achey but warm, so warm and alive, tingling under Poe's touch. He brushes their lips together, tastes ice and torn skin, then Poe opens his mouth and breathes in, and Finn's kissing him for real. Real, deep, _hard_ , hard enough for someone to whine, for them to fall sideways against the floor, half atop the parka. Everything is sudden, intense, _rapid_.

Finn knows what to do. But _knowing_ compared to doing is like explaining poetry to Sani versus _tasting_ it on his tongue. Or tasting Poe on his tongue, hearing his rough breath, grabbing at him - arm, waist, hip - so hungrily that he can't think.

The thoughtlessness, however, is nothing like captivity, nothing like wearing the helmet. This is pleasure and need, the joy at their reunion resuming and spiking higher, and higher, as Finn gets his knee between Poe's legs and pushes up on one palm to tug up Poe's sweater with his free hand. Poe stretches, reaches for him, tries to get Finn's pants open.

"You're --" Finn starts to say. He's read _so much_ poetry, he should know what to say. Poe blinks and smiles, hand in Finn's pants now, tongue flicking over his lips. "Beautiful. Beautiful."

"Nah," Poe says, craning up, kissing Finn again as he hauls out his cock and starts working it fast and hard. "You're a fucking vision, you're --"

"I want you," Finn ends up saying, several times, like a confession. " _Poe_ , please."

"What do you want?" Poe's still jacking him, lazily now, teasing the head and driving the breath out of Finn's lungs. "Hmm?"

"Take it out," Finn says and rolls his hips into Poe's touch. "I want to taste you, I need --"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Do it, please."

"Anything," Poe says, just so simply, and he has to unlock his fingers from Finn's dick - he makes an extravagant pout at that, makes sure that Finn notices - so he can wriggle up and open his fly. "Like this, right?"

Finn's sliding down, wrapping his arms around Poe's legs, already burying his face against the sharp jut of Poe's pelvis. "Yes, _yes_."

He's so hungry, and Poe's skin is so hot, trembling with goosebumps, and his cock is swollen, spattered with pre-cum. When Finn takes the head in his mouth, Poe's fingers clutch the back of his neck, his hips rising. Finn can hear his name, distantly, caught up in the storm outside, but all he can see and taste is _Poe_ , sweaty and glowing and shaking with need. He fucks his mouth up and down, quickly, desperately, and when Poe starts to come, Finn holds him down with firm hands and drinks it all down.

He pulls off when Poe's softening and his breathing has started evening out. 

"C'mere," Poe says, touching Finn's cheek, flicking away a drop of cum. "Please."

"Right here," Finn tells him. He's sleepy, and warm, and when he wraps his arms around Poe to kiss him again, peace settles over him and pulses through him. Poe licks his hand and touches Finn again, far more surely, jacking and twisting until Finn's moaning, eyes squeezed shut, hips pumping. 

Poe kisses him throughout, fucking his hand, his tongue, murmuring Finn's name into Finn's own mouth. When Finn comes, he shouts and flails, then rolls closer, clutching at Poe, burying his face against Poe's chest.

 

The next time Finn wakes, the light is different. Silvery, brighter, though the small window shows the snow still falling fiercely. Poe is across the room, squatting before the stove. He's singing. His hair is a riot, his long underwear stretched tight across the back of his shoulders and ass, but sagging on his calves and around his waist. He bounces slightly as he stirs whatever he has in the pot, keeping time with his song.

The song sounds sad, but light, almost resigned. 

It isn't in Basic, but something sweeter and more fluid.

"What is that?" Finn asks softly. He doesn't want to disturb Poe. He'd like to lie here, rolled in the blankets, and listen for hours.

But he's curious, and he wants Poe to look at him, notice him, give him precisely that startled smile he's wearing now, looking over his shoulder.

"Porridge. Lichen and berries. Sounds nasty but it's actually good."

"No," Finn says, sitting up, hunching so the blankets are still over his shoulders. "The song, what was that?"

"Oh, that." Poe carries the pot back toward Finn. "It's some old folk song, my mom used to sing it a lot." He offers Finn the pot. "There's only one utensil. Do you want it? We could share. Or --"

"Share. This is good," Finn says, digging out another bite of the spicy-sweet stuff. It burns his tongue, but everything's so cold that the pain is almost welcome. He passes the pot and spoon back to Poe. "How are you not cold?"

Poe shrugs, chewing a mouthful. When he swallows, he says, "I'm always cold, it's just -- "

"How it's been."

"Yeah." Poe digs out another spoonful and hands the pot back.

"Tell me about the song," Finn says. The silence isn't awkward, not yet, but there's worry and discomfort hovering around them, hoping to get a chance to slide in and take over. While Poe talks, Finn has another bite, and another; gradually it warms him from the inside out.

"A shadow goes wandering around at night, looking for love, and --"

"Wait --" Excited, Finn grabs Poe's shoulder. "In the morning, they're reunited, the singer and the shadow, greeting here, there, tomorrow and today? All space, all time?"

Poe frowns at him, mouth a little open. A spot of porridge is daubed in the corner of his lips, just before his beard starts. "How did you know that? BB-8?"

"No, not him. I --. I didn't know you knew Macondian," Finn says, before the absurdity of the remark occurs to him. He didn't know _Poe_ before a few days ago, so why would he know which languages he speaks? "Sorry, that was stupid. I read --"

"Not stupid," Poe says quickly.

Finn smiles at him, turning the empty pot in his hands. "I read a translation of it. The song. It's famous."

"Is it?"

"Well. Maybe not _famous_ , but enough that it represented Macondian romance in a galactic compendium of love poems."

"Finn, Finn, Finn," Poe all but croons, leaning in, slipping his hand up Finn's arm, under the blankets, stroking his shoulder and neck. "Holding out on me here. You read _love poems_? For fun? How are you so great?"

Finn ducks his head and exhales slowly. "I read them to a droid, actually."

Poe purses his lips. "Kinky."

"Oh, definitely, she and I were hot and heavy," Finn says. The tightness in his chest unclenches as he laughs. "No, she wanted them explained to her."

Poe's eyes are moving back and forth, taking in Finn's face, and his smile is spreading, getting wider and brighter. "You --"

"It's funny, see, because what would a stormtrooper know about anything, especially love?"

"I dunno," Poe says softly, inclining closer, drawing the blankets around himself, too. "You're pretty knowledgeable so far as I can tell."

"Sex isn't --"

"No, but it's not nothing, either." Poe kisses him open-mouthed and gentle, wrapping his arms around Finn's chest and pulling himself up close. He tips his head back. "You can't do what you do without a good heart, one with love in it."

Finn wants to snort with laughter. Instead, all he can do is slump a little against Poe's bony frame. "What am I _doing_?"

"Making out," Poe replies, hand in Finn's hair. "Later, maybe we'll fuck around again? Hope so. Then we should probably get a move on, strategy-wise and such. After that, definitely more boning."

Despite himself - he should be _serious_ , damn it, this isn't a vacation - Finn laughs and presses his face into the warmth of Poe's shoulder. "Your priorities are pretty fucked."

"They're excellent and very well-thought out," Poe says mildly. "I've had _a lot_ of time to sort them out, believe me."

"Wait, did you just call sex 'boning'?"

Poe doesn't reply. He's kissing Finn again, more hungrily, palms skating restlessly over Finn's back and arms.

This isn't a vacation. This is real; if he's happy, and he _is_ , that doesn't have to end. He believes that, the simple truth of it sliding into his consciousness the way light breaks over a horizon or a breeze finds chimes to ring.

*

Before they can try to contact the _Falcon_ , they have to wait out the blizzard. It could be another day, it could be a standard week.

They fall into a routine as easy as breathing. Poe cooks, Finn gathers fuel for the fire, aided by BB-8's enhanced visual power.

Finn is happy. He doesn't quite know what to do with that fact: it's true, but _why?_ He isn't sure if it's fair to be happy. Fair, or appropriate, or anything acceptable.

Maybe he feels all right because he's on a mission. When they get off-planet, he could sink right back down to fearful anxiety.

He pictures the panic waiting for him like that unknown mammalian, huge and lumbering, with savage horns. One misstep, and Finn could be gored all over again.

"Is that it?" he asks. "I'm only all right when I'm useful? That's no way to be, that's --"

Poe shakes his head and squeezes Finn's hand. "That's not true."

"That's what it feels like."

"Maybe it's not being _useful_. Maybe you're all right when you're not alone."

"But with Han and Chewie --"

"When you're not on the outside."

Finn nods, and thinks, and thinks some more. He likes the idea, but it can't be that simple. "It feels too easy."

"Maybe it is," Poe says. "Maybe, just maybe, everything's _not_ going to be agonizingly difficult forever and ever." He smiles at Finn, gentle and sympathetic. "Just a hunch. And a hope."

"Yeah, maybe," Finn replies and drinks down the rest of his tea. "It's just -- I mean. I'm a stormtrooper. I was. That's all I've ever been."

Poe shakes his head. He looks like he wants to argue, but instead he closes his mouth and runs his palm up Finn's arm.

"You're so important to -- me, my life, everything that happened."

Poe's smile is crooked, slightly abashed. "Aw, that's --"

"But I don't know anything about you," Finn continues. "Not really."

"Buddy, how do you think I feel?"

"Yeah," Finn says, "roughly similar, I guess?"

"Stormtrooper shows up, saves my faith in the goodness of humanity, smiles like an _angel_ and shoots like a genius. Then next thing I know, he's dead and I'm baking in the desert on a First Order penal transport."

Finn sighs. "You make it sound --"

"Exactly like it was," Poe says. "At least you had resources. You could've asked BB-8 about me. Solo, even, though he's not exactly reliable..."

"BB-8 blamed me."

"For what?"

"You. Your death."

"Aw, did he?" Poe smiles fondly and rubs his chin. "What a jerk." 

"I couldn't ask. Never occurred to me, actually." Finn shakes his head. What's _wrong_ with him?

"You can ask now," Poe says. "We've got time."

"Yeah, I --" Finn shrugs. "I suddenly don't know what to say."

"Plenty of time, believe me."

*

The storm starts letting up that evening. By morning, it has diminished to the occasional squall, broken by long periods of intense platinum-shaded calm.

BB-8 insists that his plan is superior. Rather than try to capture a transmitter from the Hench, they'll extract him from Finn and launch him into the atmosphere. Up there, free of whatever tech-dampening infrastructure might be shrouding Pozaba, he will contact Han.

Finn's hesitant. BB-8 chides him for being afraid, but it isn't that. He'll miss the bright, insistent little presence. He doesn't want to have to get used to another absence.

"Silly," BB-8 tells him. "I'll be back, better than ever."

Finn's going to have to trust that.

Poe has to slice open the bacta-stitches on Finn's neck, then pop out disc containing BB-8's mind. Finn retches when it happens, feels BB-8 yanked away from him, and the tears fall before he can stop himself.

*

"You were never just a stormtrooper, you know," Poe says later as they're hiking to the summit to launch BB-8.

"Not sure I agree," Finn replies. 

"No, bear with me. I've thought about this a lot --" Poe has to pause talking to grasp hold of the outcropping and pull himself up. Finn gives him a boost, then waits before pulling himself up. They end up right at the top of the world, it seems, white and black and wreathed by smoke and snow. It's quiet up here, glittering with ice.

Poe slips his arm around Finn's shoulder. "Judge people by what they do, that's how I was raised. Then I get here, and I can't do nothing. Can't fly, can't spy, might as well be a ghost. What's that leave? Who am I?"

Finn nods slowly. "Yeah."

"But I've still got all these...relations. Connections. Shara's boy, Kes's. Muran's lover. Organa's man. Your friend."

"Me?"

"I had _a lot_ of time on my own, Finn. So much time. Daydreams kind of take over after a while."

"Sure." Finn feels like he should say more, something about why would you daydream about me? But Poe's crawling forward again, speaking, and Finn has to catch up.

"Those people, they might not be much, not in the big scheme of...the galaxy and so on, but they were enough."

"More than some of us get," Finn says without thinking. He bites his lip and shakes his head, wishing the words were just the cloud of his breath that he could wave away.

Poe glances over at him. "You don't believe that."

He says it so gravely and seriously that Finn can't reply. He nods, thinking of the people around the table, of Rey's kiss and Chewie's hug, how Kes would not let him go and how Han urged him to be careful. Even after disappointing and frustrating everyone at that table, several times over, he still trusts that they'd come to help him again if he needed it.

"Who's Muran?"

Poe grins, then, suddenly, grimaces and looks away. After a moment, he looks back at Finn. He seems hesitant, somehow.

Finn says, quickly as he can, "Never mind, I'm sorry, you don't have to --"

Poe's grinning again, holding out his hand to help Finn over a break in the ice. "No, no, I want to tell you about him. He was --" He squares his shoulders and checks the horizon. "He was the greatest. You'd've loved him."

"He's not around?"

"Died a while ago," Poe says, and Finn tries not to feel relieved by that sad fact. "Let's do this, all right?"

At the far side of the summit, the rock is smoother, almost flat. Finn brushes off the ice while Poe sets up the tiny disk atop the makeshift launcher they've assembled from parts of the cooker and a blaster bolt. Poe's misspent youth building illegal rockets and orbital probes has finally come in handy; Finn has had to promise a few times to back him up on this fact when they get back to Kes.

After the physical extraction and the hard climb, the actual launch is over almost immediately. The dried moss catches fire, the booster ignites, and the explosion is bright enough to blind them. Their heads hang back as they watch BB-8 shoot into the clouds.

They're holding hands, close as one body and its shadow.

"He promises this will work," Poe reminds Finn. "He's not stupid."

"He's all about thinking positively."

"Yeah, he is."

"Guess we could try to follow his lead," Finn says and makes a show of being reluctant. "I _suppose_."

"Hell," Poe says roughly, kissing Finn, embracing him and not letting go. His hair lifts off his forehead as he grins. "What've we got to lose, right?"

**Author's Note:**

> The love poem from the Macondo system is Silvio Rodrguez's "Por todo espacio, por todo tiempo" ([lyrics](http://www.musica.com/letras.asp?letra=1480029); [audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW2lCImJEWw)). The terrible translation is by me; let's pretend its clunkiness is for artistic effect, shall we?


End file.
